28 research outputs found
Post-acute COVID-19 neuropsychiatric symptoms are not associated with ongoing nervous system injury
A proportion of patients infected with severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 experience a range of neuropsychiatric symptoms months after infection, including cognitive deficits, depression and anxiety. The mechanisms underpinning such symptoms remain elusive. Recent research has demonstrated that nervous system injury can occur during COVID-19. Whether ongoing neural injury in the months after COVID-19 accounts for the ongoing or emergent neuropsychiatric symptoms is unclear. Within a large prospective cohort study of adult survivors who were hospitalized for severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 infection, we analysed plasma markers of nervous system injury and astrocytic activation, measured 6 months post-infection: neurofilament light, glial fibrillary acidic protein and total tau protein. We assessed whether these markers were associated with the severity of the acute COVID-19 illness and with post-acute neuropsychiatric symptoms (as measured by the Patient Health Questionnaire for depression, the General Anxiety Disorder assessment for anxiety, the Montreal Cognitive Assessment for objective cognitive deficit and the cognitive items of the Patient Symptom Questionnaire for subjective cognitive deficit) at 6 months and 1 year post-hospital discharge from COVID-19. No robust associations were found between markers of nervous system injury and severity of acute COVID-19 (except for an association of small effect size between duration of admission and neurofilament light) nor with post-acute neuropsychiatric symptoms. These results suggest that ongoing neuropsychiatric symptoms are not due to ongoing neural injury
A Comprehensive Survey Of Managed Care Organization (Mco) Medication Adherence Intervention Programs
Meat consumption providing a surplus energy in modern diet contributes to obesity prevalence: an ecological analysis
Background: Excessive energy intake has been identified as a major contributor to the global obesity epidemic. However, it is not clear whether dietary patterns varying in their composition of food groups contribute. This study aims to determine whether differences in per capita availability of the major food groups could explain differences in global obesity prevalence.
Methods: Country-specific Body Mass Index (BMI) estimates (mean, prevalence of obesity and overweight) were obtained. BMI estimates were then matched to mean of three year-and country-specific availability of total kilocalories per capita per day, major food groups (meat, starch, fibers, fats and fruits). The per capita Gross Domestic Product (GDP) and prevalence of physical inactivity for each country were also obtained. SPSS was used for log-transformed data analysis.
Results: Spearman analyses of the different major food groups shows that meat availability is most highly
correlated with prevalence of obesity (r = 0.666, p < 0.001) and overweight (r = 0.800, p < 0.001) and mean BMI (r = 0.656, p < 0.001) and that these relationships remain when total caloric availability, prevalence of physical inactivity and GDP are controlled in partial correlation analysis. Stepwise multiple linear regression analysis indicates that meat availability is the most significant predictors of prevalence of obesity and overweight and mean BMI among the food groups. Scatter plot diagrams show meat and GDP adjusted meat are strongly correlated to obesity prevalence.
Conclusion: High meat availability is correlated to increased prevalence of obesity. Effective strategies to reduce meat consumption may have differential effects in countries at different stages of the nutrition transition
Disease-associated glycosylated molecular variants of human C-reactive protein activate complement-mediated hemolysis of erythrocytes in tuberculosis and Indian visceral leishmaniasis
Human C-reactive protein (CRP), as a mediator
of innate immunity, removed damaged cells by activating
the classical complement pathway. Previous studies have
successfully demonstrated that CRPs are differentially induced
as glycosylated molecular variants in certain pathological
conditions. Affinity-purified CRPs from two most
prevalent diseases in India viz. tuberculosis (TB) and
visceral leishmaniasis (VL) have differential glycosylation
in their sugar composition and linkages. As anemia is a
common manifestation in TB and VL, we assessed the
contributory role of glycosylated CRPs to influence hemolysis
via CRP-complement-pathway as compared to
healthy control subjects. Accordingly, the specific binding
of glycosylated CRPs with erythrocytes was established by
flow-cytometry and ELISA. Significantly, deglycosylated
CRPs showed a 7–8-fold reduced binding with erythrocytes
confirming the role of glycosylated moieties. Scatchard
analysis revealed striking differences in the apparent binding constants (104–105M−1) and number of binding
sites (106–107sites/erythrocyte) for CRP on patients’ erythrocytes
as compared to normal. Western blotting along with
immunoprecipitation analysis revealed the presence of
distinct molecular determinants on TB and VL erythrocytes
specific to disease-associated CRP. Increased fragility, hydrophobicity
and decreased rigidity of diseased-erythrocytes
upon binding with glycosylated CRP suggested membrane
damage. Finally, the erythrocyte-CRP binding was shown to
activate the CRP-complement-cascade causing hemolysis,
even at physiological concentration of CRP (10μg/ml).
Thus, it may be postulated that CRP have a protective role
towards the clearance of damaged-erythrocytes in these two
disease